Volume 24, 2026 year

This article examines the concept of the heroic mode in world literature. The classical understanding of heroism, developed in European scholarship on the basis of ancient and medieval literature, cannot always be applied to the analysis of Eastern literatures, especially non-Indo-European ones. The article undertakes a comparative analysis of the heroic mode based on the following literary works: Western European (“The Song of Roland”, “The Song of the Nibelungs”, “Beowulf”), Old Russian (chronicles, hagiographies, “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”), Indian (“Mahabharata”), Persian (“Shahnameh”), Chinese (“Romance of the Three Kingdoms”), and Japanese (“The Tale of the Heike”). The focus is on the understanding of the heroic deed, its purposes, means of achievement, and the role of defeat in the hero’s fate. Significant differences are identified, ranging from the Western European emphasis on self-sacrifice for the sake of posthumous glory to the Indian orientation toward decisive victory and the restoration of world harmony; from the Chinese diversity of goals and the transfer of heroic action into the intellectual sphere to the Japanese interpretation of victory through the lens of transience and the law of retribution. Special attention is paid to the collective nature of heroism and the “feat of endurance” in Old Russian literature, as well as to psychological readiness for death and the ability to adapt to defeats as crucial traits of the hero in Eastern traditions. Understanding the heroic mode requires taking into account the cultural specificities of each civilization and rejecting simplified notions of heroism as a single ethical category in world literature.

Keywords: heroic mode, heroic deed, aim, Western European epic, Old Russian literature, Indian literature, Chinese literature, Persian literature, Japanese literature

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This article aims to clarify the definition of the concept of “formula.” The study analyzes various definitions presented in dictionaries of several languages and explores different approaches to defining a formula, including literary, linguo-stylistic, and folkloric interpretations. The most established definition is considered to be the one proposed by A. Lord in “The Singer of Tales.” Using examples from Spanish and English epic poetry, the article discusses the problem of the “group of words” featured in the definitions by M. Parry and A. Lord, and examines its stability. In refining the term, three factors ensuring the coherence of a formula are identified: phonetic, syntagmatic, and semantic. Every sound device performs two functions: primary and secondary. The primary function is constitutive: alliteration and assonance enhance the coherence of a formula by connecting its elements at the phonetic level. Phonetic coherence traces its origins back to the religious and magical roots of traditional oral storytelling. The secondary function is aesthetic. The formula became a means of composing verse, but for historical reasons, it did not become solely a means. The elements of a formula exhibit a high degree of syntactic coherence, which in extreme cases can lead to lexicalization. The semantic factor is interpreted through the lens of M. Black’s analytical philosophy. An external factor that limits and regulates the selection of specific “ideas” (in A. Lord’s terminology) and the words expressing them within a formula is tradition. The conclusion proposes a refined definition: a formula is a coherent and semantically integral pattern that is used and filled by the singer under specific metrical and thematic conditions determined by tradition.

Keywords: formula, poetics, terminology, function, “The Singer of Tales”, Albert Lord, Max Black, Millman Parry, Alexander Veselovsky, Boris Putilov

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The byliny depicting Ilya Muromets’ defeat of Solovei the Brigand (Solovei-razboinik) and Idolishche share structural similarities with other early oral sources. This makes it possible to reconstruct the outlines of an early song about the victory of the prophet Elijah over the pagan idol of Perun in Kiev. Widespread echoes of this song suggest that it likely served as a central national myth celebrating the conversion of Rus. Initially, the two bylina episodes — about Solovei and about Idolishche — formed a single narrative. The transformation of the prophet Elijah into a Russian warrior named Ilya Muromets is a late development; originally, the hero was thought to come from Constantinople, the cradle of the East Slavic Church. The “Tale of Igor’s Campaign” contains motifs that refer to the song about Elijah and the idol. Several other narratives likely derive from offshoots of this central myth: the legend of Dobrynia’s confrontation with the pagan priest Solovei (reported in the loachim Chronicle), the legend of Avraamii’s struggle with the Rostov idol of Veles, and a legend in the Trinity Compilation Chronicle about the liberation of Kiev from a gathering of pagan forces. A close connection is undeniable between the early song about Elijah, the bird, and the idol, and the dukhovnyi stikh (spiritual verse) about St. George, a giant bird, and the idolatrous Persian king, though the precise nature of this connection remains to be clarified.

Keywords: Ilya Muromets, Elijah the Prophet, Idolishche, Nightingale the Robber, The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, Avraamy of Rostov, Perun, Veles, Div, Troyan, Dobrynya, Baptism of Rus, bylinas, Simurgh

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The article analyzes the narrative structure of the Patericon of Volokolamsk in the context of the interaction between written and oral traditions. It focuses on identifying and describing typological parallels between patericon narratives and folklore tales, as well as “wandering plots” of world literature. The material consists of the stories of the Paterikon of Volokolamsk, examined in comparison with texts of Byzantine, Slavic-Balkan, and Western European literary traditions, as well as with Slavic folklore. In particular, the study considers the narrative of the heretical priest and the Eucharistic miracle, eschatological visions, prophetic dreams, the motif of crossing a river of fire, the personification of Monday, and the motif of a hero rescued by a faithful animal. Some narratives derive from written sources, while others reveal stable typological correspondences with folklore traditions. The incorporation of oral tales into the patericon narrative is shown to be accompanied by their adaptation within the framework of the hagiographic canon. As a result, the Paterikon of Volokolamsk emerges as a text in which the complex interaction of different cultural layers is realized, shaping a distinctive poetics of narrative.

Keywords: “wandering” tales, literature and folklore, the Paterikon of Volokolamsk, Old Russian literature, genre, motive, image, narrative, folklore, folklorism

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The article deals with the evolution of the lost paradise motif in Russian literature — from ancient times to the beginning of the 20th century. It is proven that lost paradise is precisely a motif based on the features of plot, actantness, chronotopic characteristics, predicativity, invariance and variability, and intertextuality. The aim of the work was to determine the features of the implementation of the lost paradise motif in Russian literature before and after the perception of J. Milton’s poem “Paradise Lost” within the Russian cultural space. The information from the first edition of the “Dictionary-index of plots and motifs of Russian literature” (Novosibirsk, 2006) was used as a source base for selecting the material. The main conclusion of the study is that in Russian literature before the 18th century, that is, before the translations of Milton’s poem, the motif of lost paradise was recreated mainly in apocrypha, spiritual poetry and court drama; it was based on the biblical story with some additions (Adam’s lament, Adam’s handwriting) and a characteristic interpretation of the loss of paradise as the plot event that would lead to the birth of Christ. Since the 18th century, the influence of Milton’s already translated work has become noticeable in the realization of the lost paradise motif in Russian literature: the motif acquires a cosmological scale (Dostoevsky’s “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”), and the kingdom of Chaos is added to its topology (Kheraskov’s “The Universe”); the life of the first ancestors is interpreted under the influence of the pastoral tradition, emphasizing amorous and erotic characteristics; Adam’s vision of the future is also reinterpreted (Gumilyov’s “Adam’s Dream”). Thus, we can speak both of Milton’s direct influence on the epic tradition (for example, the poems of Bogdanovich and Kheraskov) and of the creative reception of his image of the lost paradise in the literature of the “Golden Age” and subsequent periods.

Keywords: Lost Paradise, “Genesis”, John Milton, apocrypha, creative reception, motif, dual motif, image of paradise, Old Russian literature, Ippolit Bogdanovich, Mikhail Kheraskov, Aleksander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Gumilyov, Fyodor Sologub

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The article offers an interpretation of V. F. Odoevsky’s short novel “Cosmorama” as a parable about the fall. As a child, the hero, driven by a forbidden curiosity, looks into the “alluring box” and thereby unwittingly tastes the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Vladimir is a rational “man of the 19th century.” He has lost his faith and strives for earthly pleasures. But because of mystical events, he becomes increasingly aware of the irrational nature of existence and the impossibility of explaining human actions from the point of view of common sense and “earthly” logic. Vladimir comprehends the duality of human actions and motives, the deceptiveness of earthly causeand-effect relationships. The world depicted in “Cosmorama” is twofold, a mystical essence emerges behind earthly objects and buildings. Things become symbols, for example: little Volodya’s toys, auntie’s three-story house, a dovecote, a moon in the living room, a steep staircase that leads to the sun from a cave, a huge clock. The cosmorama itself represents a model of the universe. The box can be disassembled and examined (as scientists do with nature), but at the same time its mystical essence will remain unchanged and incomprehensible to the naturalist. Other “tools” are needed to study it: spiritual vision, faith, and tearful prayer. Vladimir unwittingly opens a connection with another world and desires to sever this link, but in vain. The only path to salvation for the hero is his turn toward God, following the wise virgin Sophia.

Keywords: Vladimir Odoevsky, “Cosmorama”, mysticism, religion, fantasy, fall, redemption

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The article examines the theatrical nature of Nikolai Gogol’s artistic thinking in the early period of his work, drawing on the cycle of tales “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”. The relevance of the study stems from the need for a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between the writer’s stage experience and the formation of his poetics. The study aims to identify the mechanisms through which theatrical principles function in the narrative structure and in the construction of the figurative system of the works. The research draws on the texts of the tales, epistolary and memoir evidence from contemporaries, as well as critical works and studies. The study establishes that Gogol’s stage experience, acquired at the Prince Bezborodko Gymnasium of Higher Sciences, influenced the formation of a specific type of artistic vision. Narrative fragments are organized according to the principles of mise-en-scène, action is concentrated within a conventional space, and techniques of lightand-shadow and sound organization are actively employed. Gesture, facial expression, and physical expressiveness acquire particular significance, performing semantic and characterological functions by intensifying verbal expression and contributing to the effect of visual spectacle. The principle of contrast, realized at the level of portrait characteristics and acoustic environment, functions as a structural element of the artistic system. Theatricality thus appears not as an external device but as an immanent property of Gogol’s early poetics that determines his representation of the human being and the world. The study clarifies the understanding of the genesis of Gogol’s artistic method.

Keywords: Nikolai Gogol, theatre, image, detail, contrast, gesture, facial expression, artistic method, poetics, literary character, role, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”

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The problematic field of the article is related to the dating and pub­lication of the definitive text of M. Yu. Lermontov’s poem “To I. P. Myatlev.” The historical, literary, and logical arguments in favor of dating the poem to 1840 are systematized. The article examines the tradition of publishing a poem from publication in the journal “Otechestvennye Zapiski” in 1842 to publication in the latest scientific edition of the works of Mikhail Lermontov in 2014. Various variants of the title complex from the first edition to the 2014 edition, in which the text of the poem is reproduced most closely to the autograph, are considered. At the same time, it should be noted that the 2014 edition allowed the selection of autograph texts and the previous publication tradition con­cerning graphics, word order, and punctuation. The arguments of the definitive text proposed for publication include not only M. Yu. Lermontov’s autograph, but also archival sources from the collections of I. P. Myatlev and P. A. Vyazem­sky. It is established that the inaccuracy of the first publication in the “Otechest­vennye Zapiski,” which was then taken as the canonical text, led to both the replication of distortions and inaccuracies in literary critics’ comments on the poem. The conjectures introduced by the publishers made it difficult to fully understand the author’s play on words, the peculiarities of the poetics of irony, and did not provide an opportunity to evaluate the subtle dialogue of poets in the cultural situation of the first half of the 19th century.

Keywords: Mikhail Lermontov, “To I. P. Myatlev”, textual criticism, authentic text, fair-copy manuscript, macaronic poems, tradition of publishing, pun, literary communication

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This article examines the national image of the world in Vladimir Dahl’s fiction from an imagological perspective. The aim of the study is to reconstruct the evolution of Dahl’s notions of “one’s own” and “alien” in the context of his ethnological project and concept of narodnost’ (national character). The methodological basis of the study is a synthesis of classical comparative studies (A. N. Veselovsky, V. M. Zhirmunsky), semiotic and conceptual analysis (Yu. S. Stepanov), and the theoretical principles of imagology (H. Dyserink, J. Leerssen, and works by representatives of the Russian school). The material consists of Dahl’s novellas, “physiological” essays, and short stories from the 1840s–1850s, including “The Life of a Man, or a Walk Along Nevsky Prospect,” “Savely Grab, or the Double,” “The Adventures of Christian Khristianovich Violdamur and His Arshet,” and others. The authors demonstrate that Dahl’s artistic world is ethnocentric and organized around the “one’s own — alien” opposition, which, however, due to the writer’s own multicultural experience, is often blurred or paradoxically transformed. Particular attention is paid to the formation of Dahl’s “Petersburg text”: the capital is presented as a “world within a world,” an urban cosmos where traditional dichotomies of living/dead, natural/cultural, and one’s own/alien are modified. It is con- cluded that Dahl’s fiction is not an illustration but an integral part of his eth- nological project, comparable in significance to his Explanatory Dictionary and collection of proverbs. This study contributes to our understanding of the mechanisms of national identity representation in mid-19th-century Russian literature.

Keywords: Vladimir Dahl’s literary heritage, national image of the world, narodnost’, national character, imagology, physiological sketch, short novel, Petersburg text

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This article examines the artistic transformation of Leo Tolstoy’s short story “The Repentant Sinner” (1886) as a case study of the author’s reinterpretation of the folklore tradition within the context of his religious-philosophical evolution during the 1880s. By comparing the drafts and the final text of the work with its direct source — “The Tale of the Brawler” as published by A. N. Afanasyev — the article analyzes the fundamental poetic and semantic transformations that Tolstoy undertook in the process of composing the text. Particular attention is devoted to the architectonics of the final version of the short story: the structural principle of trinity, the ascending gradation of ethical foundations, as well as the role of the Gospel epigraph as a hermeneutic key to the work. The article examines how the movement from the everyday particularity of the initial drafts toward the extreme narrative generalization of the final text brings to light the key concerns of the late Tolstoy: the aspiration toward a parabolic poetics, the affirmation of love over the logic of judgment and retribution, and the universality of the Gospel teaching as the foundation of Christian ethics.

Keywords: Leo Tolstoy, folk story, “The Repentant Sinner”, “The Tale of the Brazhnik”, folklore, poetics, textology, parable, epigraph, “Posrednik”, Christian ethics

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Many researchers of Chekhov’s work have already discovered in his early works (“On the High Road,” “Fatherlessness”) the “echo” of some of Dostoevsky’s characters — for example, Parfyon Rogozhin from the novel “The Idiot.” Meanwhile, Chekhov has many more such “echoes.” The article shows that Platonov and Kamyshev, the heroes of Chekhov’s play “Fatherlessness” andthe novel “Drama on the Hunt,” are associated with the image of Nikolai Stavrogin (“Demons”). Platonov’s transgressions look much more modest in comparison with Stavrogin’s, and in the case of Kamyshev, the features of the hero of “Demons” are combined with the signs of the “underground paradoxalist,” Raskolnikov, Ivan Karamazov, and even Paratov (“The Girl Without a Dowry” by A. N. Ostrovsky). However, this is typical of early Chekhov, especially since he found “a lot of pretensions” in Dostoevsky’s works and was looking for his own artistic style. In Chekhov’s mature work, his characters’egocentric indifference to everything: Andrey Prozorov and and Chebutykin (“Three Sisters”), Tsybukin (In the Ravine) — refer not so much specifically to Stavrogin as to the invariant of his characters who are indifferent to others and therefore profess moral relativism — such as Stavrogin, Ivan Karamazov and the hero of “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” in the first half of this short story.

Keywords: Chеkhov, Dostoevsky, Stavrogin, literary prototype, “Fatherlessness”, “Demons”, “Drama on the Hunt”, play, novel, prose

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The term realism is one of the most controversial in literary studies. By the mid‑19th century, its content had been established on the philosophical foundation of positivism. By the second half of the 1960s, the term, as well as the realistic mode of depicting the world in literature itself, began to be sys- tematically subjected to critical reflection in foreign and domestic scholarship. Significant milestones on this path in foreign humanities included the works of R. Barthes, T. Todorov, and N. Goodman, and in domestic literary scholarship, the works of A. M. Gurevich, V. M. Markovich, I. A. Esaulov, and V. N. Zakharov. Foreign scholars followed the path of poststructuralism and deconstructivism, converging on the thesis that any realism is created by a discourse that convinces of the reality of what is depicted. Russian scholarship continued the traditions of hermeneutics and historical poetics. In 20th‑cen- tury English Slavic studies, Russian realism was conceptualised in two ways, diverging from both the “general Western” and the Russian approaches to it. The first was M. Baring’s ethnocultural concept. It captured in Russian litera- ture from Pushkin to Chekhov a correspondence to the national character and singled out its combination of the poetics of everyday life, an immanent “sense of reality,” and humaneness. D. S. Mirsky pioneered the second (fundamentally non‑religious) concept. As the leading features of Russian realism, it singled out the poeticisation of reality, concealed moralism, and the author’s sympathy for the characters. By the 1940s, the concept of “sympathetic” realism had been synthesised with the ethnocultural one and became established in English Slavic studies as the dominant view. Under the influence of structuralist ideas, it gradually changed: by the 1960s, a discursive approach focusing on the techniques of persuading the reader that the created image of the world corresponds to reality became widespread. In Anglo‑American works of the 1970s–1990s, a new position found expression — the unification of the approach to classical Russian and European literature of the 19th century, based on the theories of socio‑historical determinism and poststructuralism. At the beginning of the 21st century, a postcolonial vector emerged in English‑language studies of Russian realism. The potential for turning to the Orthodox worldview as the plot and axiological foundation of the classic Russian novel, identified in English (and French) Slavic studies at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, proved unclaimed.

Keywords: Anglo-American Slavic studies, ethnocultural concept of Russian realism, concept of sympathetic realism, psychological determinism, poststructuralism, postcolonial theory

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The article examines and describes the distinctive features of the mystical paradigm and the reasons for its increasing significance in Symbolist prose. For comparative purposes, the main body of the work is preceded by a brief introduction that provides a concise historical and literary retrospective of the chosen theme: it outlines the place and distinctive characteristics of mystical poetics in preceding periods, specifically in early modern prose, and touches upon questions of terminology. In the author’s view, the emergence and originality of Modernist‑Symbolist prose were conditioned both by the immanent processes then taking place within art and by the search for new means of artistic expression — but equally, or even to a greater extent, by the socially significant cultural‑historical situation, a point already noted by contemporaries. The specificity of the mystical paradigm in Symbolist prose is also examined in comparison with that of Gothic literature, since in both literary traditions this paradigm ranked among the dominant ones. According to the article’s final conclusion, the major transformations in literature at the beginning of the 20th century — above all, the heightened role of mystical poetics in literary creativity — were determined by a crisis in the adjacent fields of the natural sciences and philosophy, as well as by pan‑European doubts that had arisen in the sphere of worldviews.

Keywords: Symbolist prose, poetics, metaphysics, mysticism, worldview, crisis of consciousness, Gothic

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“Duck Hunting” by A. Vampilov and “The Last Term” by V. Rasputin were written in the same place — in hotels in Angarsk, Irkutsk region — at the same time, during joint trips of beginning writers over several years in the late 1960s. The shared creative chronotope of the play and the novella allows us to correlate both works, despite the difference in their nature — drama and prose. For the first time, the article identifies parallels at the level of the plot-forming motif of memory, the motif of the last term, artistic topos and time, images of the main characters, the image of the window, and the landscape-portrait. It is shown that the plot of the novella “The Last Term” is present in the play “Duck Hunting” in a compressed form (the episode with Zilov’s father’s letter). The motifs of memory and the last term are revealed in the aspect of the Orthodox worldview traditional for Russian culture as a form of confession and standing before eternity. The compression of artistic time and space in both authors serves not as a compositional device, but as a way of transforming everyday life (byt) into authentic existence (bytie). The unity of poetics in V. Rasputin’s novella and A. Vampilov’s play is determined not only by the creative chronotope, but also by the unity of cultural memory in the artistic consciousness of the two writers, who were friends.

Keywords: chronotope, artistic topos, artistic time, motif of the memory, motif of the last term, landscape-portrait, image of the main character, image of the window, microplot, autobiographism, “Duck Hunting”, “The Last Term”, Alexander Vampilov, Valentin Rasputin

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